Shit! For a moment seconds ago, I figured I was golden. I turned to Lacey. “You have any dice back there, Lace?”
Lacey was confused for a moment, but rooted behind the bar for a cube she had from a popular dice game at a bar, called Chug-A-Lug. She retrieved a cup for rattling the dice before tossing them on the bar, and put one in my hand.
I showed it to the punk, holding it out in the palm of my hand. “We’re going to do a reverse game, based on the old ‘Kung Fu’ series on TV. If you can snatch the cube out of my hand, grasshopper, I will stay and buy you another round. If you can’t, then I get to take my friend home. Sound good to you?”
The young punk thought it was great, all smiles. “Sure grandpa. Let’s do it.”
He flaunted around, making supposedly deceptive gestures toward the cube, but I didn’t move a muscle. When he launched, he failed miserably to the applause of our observers. Oh boy… he was pissed. Then he got this wide grin of stupidity in the making.
“Let’s see you take the cube, grandpa. That’ll make this hoax real!”
I handed him the cube. He held it out in the palm of his hand as I had done before. “Are you ready, gramps?”
In answer, I snatched the cube out of his hand before he could close a finger… to the roar of approval from our crowd of course.
“You cheating bastard! We weren’t even set!” As I stared at him with a smile, I saw the look of defeat.
I handed the cube over. “Say when, young man. I’ll give you another go.”
He glowered and made ready, holding the cube out in a decidedly unsteady hand. All I did was move over the offering, and he snapped his hand shut to the derision of our onlookers.
“I think you have to wait until I reach for it, kid,” I reminded him gently to more laughs.
The kid’s head was about to explode. It was with great difficulty he locked eyes with me, and held the cube out again in his shaking hand.
I grinned into his look of suppressed rage with my own weird undercurrent of psycho inner workings. “Ready, Cinderella?”
That ace got him. He wanted to throw hands… not hold one out steady. The kid nodded instead. “Go for it, you old piece of shit!”
I waited, never looking aside or anywhere but into his eyes. Then I snatched the cube out of his hand before he could blink. Then, it was on. He went for me like a bull in heat. I snatched his hand like the cube he had held in it. The finger hold I’d worked for decades had him on his knees in seconds, helpless as a baby, grunting in pain. Then the buzzed part of me rose in a flower of violence. I remembered the scene in the movie ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ with Clint Eastwood, where he had a young Godzilla of a Marine at his mercy in the same manner.
“Lift your head, kid,” I told him, while applying more incredibly painful pressure. “That’s it. Tilt your head a little. Perfect.”
I raised a fist to propel bright boy into la-la land. Stacy grabbed my wrist with both hers, amidst the silent crowd with the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘The Boxer’ playing in the background.
“Please don’t, Rick… for me… just this once.”
Damn… she was good. Her plea ruined a wonderful scene of bright boy lying on the floor with a broken jaw. Then I realized if I did it, I’d be in the tank. I patted bright boy’s cheek, and released him. I nodded in acceptance at Stacy. “Thanks, Stace. Well… okay… I think we’ve taken this meeting as far as we can, kid.”
I helped my young adversarial idiot to his feet. He didn’t have use of his right hand yet, and he was working it with the other in a hurry. “I see the rage, grasshopper. My friend and I are leaving now. If you follow me out the door, I will end your life.”
I gripped grasshopper’s chin in my vice of a right hand, shaking it slightly. “Say you understand, grasshopper… right now.”
The kid luckily wasn’t a complete dunce. “I…I understand.”
“Very good, kid. I am excellent with faces. If I ever see yours in my vision again… ever… it will not go well for you.”
I released him, and put another hundred on the bar. “Have a couple more on me, my friends, including the grasshopper here. Thanks, Lacey. Sorry it ended this way.”
“It was great, Rick.” An undercurrent of enthusiastic support for the statement followed Stacy and I to the parking lot. Best of all… I wasn’t being frog marched out by a police escort.
Stacy kept looking at her watch, and I started getting an uneasy feeling. “Are you late for an appointment, Stace? The way you’re glancing at your watch, it’s reminding me of our first reunion. Please tell me there’s not someone due to arrive that will want to shove me in the trunk of their car.”
Stacy burst into tears as we made it to the parking lot. “No… no, Rick. It’s nothing like that.”
She stopped, trying to get control of herself. I’d seen this act so many times, I could play the flute along with it, because I knew all the notes. Stacy seemed desperate to tell me something, but she couldn’t quit sobbing. Then a kid ran up to us out of the darkness. He streaked in between us, fists up, and game face on - crew-cut brown hair, and a little over five and a half feet tall. From the stance he took, I figured he’d been in a few tussles.
“You leave my Grandma alone!” His voice had already turned. It wasn’t squeaky, and carried a threat with convincing clarity.
Grandma? I looked around thinking I must have been drunker than I thought, and passed out cold. Nope… I’m still here, standing. I backed away from Stacy and the kid. He looked to be thirteen or fourteen, but it could have been the lean, haunted look on his face. Stacy hugged him, her tears flowing even harder. She patted his back, resuming enough control to hold him at arms’ length, before stroking a shaking hand alongside his jawline.
“It’s okay, Jim. I’m sorry it took me a bit longer than I told you. This is your Grandpa, Rick Cantelli. He doesn’t know you yet, so give him some time, okay?”
I know Cantelli-land. There aren’t any kids in it, but this boy had an awfully familiar look that had the blood racing to my head in an all-out assault. “Okay, Stace. Maybe now would be a good time to cover the basics here.”
Stacy hugged the boy to her. He kept a grim, disbelieving stare on me, and his fists stayed clenched. “Let’s go to your place, and we’ll cover all the details, Rick… okay?”
“Sure, but when an old mutt like me gets labeled a Grandpa, patience wears thin. I know what I’m aware of doing, and this boy looks all too familiar to me. I hope the back story comes quick in a language I can understand, Stace.”
“I promise, Rick. It will. C’mon, Jim.” Stacy guided the kid toward her car, me following, and his fists finally relaxing.
With Stacy behind the wheel and rolling toward my house, Jim didn’t waste any time waiting for some time in the future to get his answers. He gripped my shoulder as I sat in the front passenger side seat.
“Are you my Grandpa, Mr. Cantelli?”
I’m a piss poor liar, and I had no intention of ducking an obvious fact I noticed the moment Jim got in my face at the bar. Jim was me… meaning I have pictures of me when I was his age. You can imagine what this does to a sixty year old reprobate, who narrowly avoided being in the drunk tank only moments before, with no clue as to how I managed to become a grandpa.
I turned so to at least face the kid, even in the darkness. “You look like I did when I was your age, kid, so my hunch is you sure are. We’re heading to my house, where your Grandma here has some ‘splainin’ to do. She’s usually very entertaining when relating how she does it, so we should wait until we’re sitting inside my house to shed light on our situation.
“You wouldn’t hurt Grandma would you?”
I smiled. “I’ve never laid a hand on your Grandma in anger. I did have to stun-gun her with my six million volt nightstick when she brought a couple of thugs to my place to tune me up. Instead, I made them do the dance electric.”
To her credit, Stacy chuckled. Jim’s eyes widened noticeably even in the darkness.
“You did? Wow… you two are nothing like I expected. Ah… no matter what happens… can I stay at your house? The foster home I was at in Phoenix will have the cops everywhere looking for me. If I can’t stay with you or Grandma, I need a head start. I’m never goin’ back there.”
“You’re my Grandson, Jim. I don’t need a DNA sample to know that. We’ll get one done anyway tomorrow for legal reasons, and I’ll get my shark Cleaver on the case. Where are you staying, Stacy?”
“A halfway house.”
“Do you have to report there, or is it voluntary?” The ‘Nite Owl’ buzz went the moment Jim confronted me to protect his Grandma. My mind raced into a hundred scenarios with the details branching out in all directions. I shut my head down, deciding to take this on in a gradual mode, one mind slap at a time. My phone had been turned off since the moment Trish dropped me at the ‘Nite Owl’.
“It’s voluntary. I…I couldn’t afford to get out on my own yet.”
“What’s a halfway house, Grandma?”
Stacy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I was in prison, Jim. They released me a little while ago. The state helps a former inmate until the inmate gets money enough to be on their own. I only hinted at it before when you came to the store, but I’ve done a lot of bad things.”
“That’s okay, Grandma. I’m glad I found you.”
“I’m glad you did too, Jim,” Stacy replied with feeling.
“How old are you, Jim?” The parameters would be important tomorrow.
“Almost thirteen. I’ve read about you. You’re a private detective. That is so cool.”
“I’m going to put some of what I do to work so we can figure how to get you out of the foster care program. What’s your full name?”
“James Randal Bishop. I heard from the other kids they don’t let old people raise kids.”
Stacy and I both laughed at that one. “They do if the geezers are the only ones left who are related. I’ll call a police detective friend when we get to the house. I have to make sure if they issued an Amber Alert, the police know you’re safe. It could get tricky, but we’ll fix this.”
“I can’t go back there, Pa. I can’t!”
“Don’t worry about that, Jim. If you do have to go back temporarily, I’ll go to Phoenix with you. Believe me. Whatever you think might happen bad will not happen. You have my word on it. It’s only 9:30. After I get some information, I’ll have my friends start working on it. They’re the best there is at what they do. My partner Lois is going to pass out cold when she finds out about you.”
“Grandma says your partner hates her.”
“Actually…. Jim… hate is such a weak word. I think ‘loathe beyond comprehension’ might be a phrase better suited to how Lois feels about Grandma.”
Stacy sighed as she drove into my driveway. “And I deserve it, Jim.”
Chapter Four
Entangling Webs
“Do you hate Grandma, Pa?”
I met Stacy’s pleading stare with my own calm one. “Nope. I never did. Let’s go inside. I really have to make some calls. Maybe… uh oh, keep the engine running, and get ready to speed out of here with Jim, Stace!” I got out, my hand on the 9mm Ruger at my back. Three thugs were approaching from my previously wounded palm tree yard display.
I moved out between them and the car. “Can I help you gentlemen?”
“You messin’ in Dane Ramos business, Cantelli,” the lead thug warned me.
“That’s close enough. If you keep moving, I’m going to start shooting, and not one of you three will survive it. You want a parley, stand still, and start talking.” Standing away from the car had my buzz going again - not in a good way. These three were run of the mill ‘bangers, looking to prove something. All were in their black hoodies, thigh high pants, complete with underwear showing, over the age of reason, but incapable of taking advantage of it. I hoped to avoid their cutting into necessary family time.
“Oh… you think you bad? We ought to waste you right now, and save Dane the trouble later, mother fucker!”
“You have a pretty mouth, sweetheart. Want to taste some pain?”
The idiot rushed me as I hoped. He figured to beat me down, and kick me into hell’s half acre. Unfortunately for him, I timed a left hook that broke his jaw highlighted by the sickening crunch, and laid him out in an unmoving pile at my feet without ever moving my right hand from the Ruger handle. It felt so good when it landed, I nearly forgot where the hell I was. What can I say? The buzz was back, and with it, the violent strain the guy at the ‘Nite Owl’ started in motion before we left. Their near comatose partner lying motionless shocked his cohorts.
“Well, boys, anyone else want some party time. That felt so good, my hand doesn’t even hurt. Keep your hands where I can see them, out in front and in plain view. If one of those hands leaves my sight, I draw, fire, and you two get extra eyes in your foreheads. If you have a Ramos message, lay it on me, and get the hell out of my sight.”
They thought about it, and I figured I’d be explaining a couple of dead guys, because if they reached, I planned on making damn sure no stray shots hit my newly discovered family. Both raised their hands into plain sight. Gee… that’s a positive.
“Dane want you to back the fuck off, Cantelli,” thug number two stated.
“Is that it? That’s the message? Here are the facts, chucklehead. My client, Cheech Garibaldi, is establishing legitimate enterprises here in San Diego. That’s the message for you dupes to take back to your boss. It would be best to lose my address. If anyone approaches my house again, there will be blood… and I mean blood until your boss no longer exists.”
My message hit hard. They wanted some, and man was I willing. I imagined no good ending from these three assholes leaving my home alive. They folded. Damn it!
“We’ll tell Dane what you said,” thug number two told me. “He don’t take threats good, Cantelli! If I was you… I’d clear the fuck out of here.”
“Better start praying instead, princess. If your boss starts a war, I’ll show him what war is all about. You’d best get out of my sight right now, before I decide three dead bodies would be a better message to your boss, sweetie. I’ll give you thirty seconds. After that, I start shootin’, starting right now.” I looked at my watch.
They didn’t pause. They yanked their comrade off the ground, and dragged him the hell off my property. Yeah… I thought about shooting them anyway, but for some reason beyond reason, I had family by blood waiting for me to finish this Cantelli-land assault. I grinned at my hesitating thugs. At the moment, the ‘Nite Owl’ buzz landed me in the no fly zone. I didn’t care what they decided… but I knew I wanted to kill them, including putting a bullet in their broken jawed comrade on my yard. I watched them until they reached a vehicle and drove off in the opposite direction. Yeah… I was ready for a drive-by. Then I remembered I wasn’t the carefree Cantelli without blood relatives. A boy called me Pa tonight, and he was sitting in the backseat of an old first love’s beat-up Honda, I’m sure wondering what the hell he was getting himself into. I walked to the driver’s side.
“Shut it off, and bring Jim in. I think the ‘banger negotiations are done for this evening.”
“That was scary,” Jim said. “Did those guys want to kill you?”
“Sort of. It has to do with my job. We have a few complications from the security installation I did early at your Grandma’s store. Let’s go inside, and I’ll explain a couple of downsides to living with your Pa, kid.”
I led the way, disabling my alarm system, and opening the door. I stood to the side, waving my family inside. “Welcome. I’m sorry about the delay. Let’s go in the kitchen. Are you hungry, Jim?”
“Ah… I’m starvin’, Pa.”
Good. “I have food. What would you like? I can cook most anything.”
“Do you have any macaroni and cheese?”
A kid after my own heart. “All I have is the boxed stuff.”
“I only like the
boxed stuff.”
I quickly began the meal, boiling water, and measuring ingredients for a double box load. “How about some frozen mixed veggies?”
“With butter… okay?”
“Yep. Microwaved right inside.” Stacy helped me with our instant meal. It was fast, delicious, and sure to make all the nannie perfectionists’ heads explode as if I were torturing the kid. I called my old buddy Captain Staley, hoping he had the night shift. He didn’t answer until the fourth ring, so I figured he was home instead, and less than thrilled to see my name on his caller ID screen.
“Cantelli,” Staley said in a resigned voice of aggravation. “I heard you were dead.”
“Close… but no golden ring. How are you, Bill?”
“I was great until I saw your name on my phone. I hope you’re still checking on the contract killer/movie star you created. I’ve been waiting for a sudden string of unexplained murders to pin on her, but nothin’ yet. She keeps singin’ on ‘Casablanca Night’, starring in movies, and marrying rich CEO’s. Damn Rick, I’d almost think you’re a good influence.”
“Are you done yet?”
“What’s up? Did you flounder your way into a drug deal gone bad, a murderous spouse, or have you killed some poor schmuck that likes you more than I do?”
Hardy har har… prick. “I found out tonight I have a grandson, named James Randal Bishop. I don’t have all the details other than he left foster care in Phoenix without permission. He found Stacy, and then they came to me. He’s only twelve. Can you find out if there’s an Amber Alert, and let everyone know he’s with his grandparents?”
I waited patiently. Captain Staley didn’t stop laughing for a full minute of irritating noise. One of these days, I’m going to adjust Bill in a very painful way. “Hello? C’mon, Bill… you ungrateful piece of shit!”
“Okay… okay… this is on the level, right Rick?”
Rick Cantelli, PI: Into the Darkness (Rick Cantelli, P.I. Detectives Book 3) Page 9